The coronavirus pandemic is giving the majority of people “a taste of homelessness”
Thanks to coronavirus, says one Street Spirit writer who is homeless, the majority of the USA is getting an idea of day to day life for the homeless community.
Pope Francis sends message to the street paper network: “The coronavirus pandemic has made your work difficult, but I am sure you will return stronger than ever”
In a personal message to the street paper network – expressing his solidarity with its journalists, its frontline staff, its volunteers and its vendors – Pope Francis hails the work being done by street papers to help “the vulnerable and invisible” in the testing circumstances created by COVID-19.
A little more good: INSP intern on how being uprooted by the pandemic has put things into perspective
Like so many others, INSP intern Jenna Minser’s life was completely upended because of COVID-19. As we all adapt to our new normal, it can be easy to focus on the bad things. Yet, it’s more important than ever to find the big things we can be grateful for and the small things we can do to make the world a little better.
How StreetWise vendors are coping during the coronavirus outbreak
We check in with vendors at Chicago-based street paper StreetWise as coronavirus has made it impossible for most of them to sell the magazine on the streets.
“Can the last one out please turn off the lights?” – It’s not just street paper selling that’s hindered by COVID-19
The coronavirus pandemic has emptied Hamburg Airport. For those working for ‘Spende Dein Pfand’, a collaboration between the Hamburg street paper Hinz&Kunzt, Hamburg Airport and the Green Dot, that means reduced working hours. The street paper talked to employee Uwe Tröger about how he’s coping.
INSP North America director Israel Bayer: “The issue of homelessness and housing in America has been a tinderbox waiting to catch fire for generations. It’s time for change”
INSP North America director Israel Bayer calls for short-term relief and sweeping changes from the US federal government as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the homeless community and plunges those in uncertain housing predicaments into greater uncertainty. It is an opportunity, Bayer writes, “to create a national housing justice movement that addresses both systemic racism and the need to provide a safe place to call home for all our citizens.”
A street paper hero in a pandemic
In Denmark, coronavirus cases and deaths have been kept relatively low compared to other European countries. But, as with elsewhere, its homeless and socially excluded people remain at risk. With a government more used to criminalising than helping this population, street paper Hus Forbi has implemented radical measures to assist its vendors, and all vulnerable Danes, as the pandemic crisis continues.
Suddenly a Ghost Town
From her pitch in Melbourne, The Big Issue Australia’s Mariann B watches the city become deserted, and the streets fall silent as coronavirus forces everyone into lockdown.
It took a pandemic to create the emergency response we’ve needed all along
In this instalment of his weekly column, Tim Harris, founding director of Seattle street paper Real Change, wonders why it took the crisis initiated by the spread of coronavirus for city officials to realise that the measures had to be taken to help the homeless population into shelter. In Seattle, as in other parts of the world, the pandemic has shown that the way, if not the will, to help those in need was there all along.
Street papers provide global update on how the world’s homeless population is facing the coronavirus
The Big Issue took stock of how coronavirus is affecting the world’s homeless community, providing another update on just how severely the spread of the virus is impacting street papers and the people for which they provide an income.
Coronavirus and Australia’s homeless people
This latest COVID-19 dispatch is from Australia, where like most places across the world, there is a cognitive dissonance when it comes to being urged to stay at home when, in fact, you don’t have a home to go to.
UK street papers sold in stores for first time in response to coronavirus crisis
UK street papers The Big Issue and Big Issue North will, for the first time, be sold in select shops and supermarkets across the country in response to the effects of the crisis caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. Vendors of both magazines had been advised to no longer sell on the streets after the UK government enforced lockdown measures in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus.
Street papers adapt to a new reality: coronavirus and a world in lockdown
As the world reacts to the outbreak of COVID-19, street papers are having to adapt to an environment of social distancing and isolation, a situation not conducive to selling street papers in the traditional way – by vendors on the street. They are now facing up to the challenge of how to continue providing a livelihood for those that rely on them. Supported by a global network, they are coming up with innovative ways to keep going.
Two Big Issue vendors on how the UK’s COVID-19 measures will affect them
With The Big Issue no longer able to have its vendors sell the magazine on the street, the great majority have seen their usual way of earning an income vanish overnight. Here, they describe how the coronavirus lockdown is going to affect them.
How San Francisco’s poor and homeless people are surviving during the coronavirus pandemic
Quiver Watts, editor of San Francisco’s Street Sheet, writes that the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak not only poses a greater risk to the city’s population living in poverty, but argues that they will be made “a convenient scapegoat to take attention off the real failures in the city’s emergency response”.
Drug and alcohol recovery in a time of isolation
As recovery support groups across the US cancel and move online due to COVID-19 measures, an increase in relapses could compound demands on health care providers.
Scarp de’ tenis editor Stefano Lampertico: “Coronavirus makes no exceptions for street paper vendors”
Italy is in nationwide lockdown, effectively quarantining its entire population in a bid to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Inside the initial red zone of the northern region of Lombardy sits the city of Milan, where Italian street paper Scarp de’ tenis is based. The magazine’s editor Stefano Lampertico writes vividly of life under lockdown for the publication and the vendors it serves.
INSP North America director Israel Bayer: “For those on the front lines of homelessness, Covid-19 represents a reality that people already live with every single day”
Israel Bayer, director of INSP North America, provides context for why the official response to the coronavirus outbreak in the region is failing those who are homeless and living in poverty, and writes about why systemic injustices mean that, amidst this health crisis, that community is being left behind.
Street survival in Portland in the age of coronavirus
Street Roots executive director Kaia Sand sends a dispatch from Oregon after visiting a small homeless camp housing a handful of the Portland street paper’s vendors who have become proactive about safeguarding themselves and staying healthy as the coronavirus panic sweeps the Pacific Northwest United States.
As coronavirus outbreak worsens, street papers and their staff respond
With coronavirus cases across the world now at well over 100,000, Italy is in lockdown and the US west coast is bearing the brunt of Covid-19’s appearance in America. INSP spoke again with street paper staff about the effect it is having on their organisations and vendors, with particular attention given to how staff are assisting vendors to stay safe and healthy.
Coronavirus: What does self-isolation look like if you sleep rough?
As the impact of the coronavirus spreads further around the world, guidance has been put in place for how to prevent it spreading and what to do if you suspect you have contracted it. However, rough sleepers cannot safeguard themselves in the same ways the general public can. The Big Issue spoke to homeless shelters and other front-line service providers to find out what plans they have in place.
How the coronavirus outbreak is affecting street paper vendors
Coronavirus – or Covid-19 – has spread to multiple countries with street paper representatives, including Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Italy. INSP is gathering information about how measures by governments and the medical community, and the reaction of the general public, are affecting street paper vendors in those locations.